My book A Magician’s Memoir is being released for sale on Amazon February 4th, 2024 either as a color paperback book or as a digital Kindle download.
A Magician’s Memoir is a collection of short pieces of writing that convey the experience of contact with the invisible world of spirit. It consists of short bursts of experience and meaning. It is highly condensed and often surprising. The sensitive reader may gasp or cry. Readers interested in such content have said the material is helpful. Some express delight.
The book consists of a mixture of genres: stories both factual and transcendent, dialogues with a variety of beings, haiku-like journaling, poetry, color images, travel to exotic locales. Generally, each piece extends over no more than a page or two. It is the kind of book you can pick up and begin reading any piece because each one stands on its own.
The author Jack Cain considers his job that of a scribe. The material is given from an invisible source – words appear but they are not visual or auditory – they appear in consciousness. During the writing process, it is important not to “fall into the words.” Don’t think about them too much. Just verify, “Did I get that right? Is the grammar clear?” And move on.
May this material be a positive influence in our unfolding world.
David Appelbaum’s April 24, 2024 Review
A Magician’s Memoir: The Pull of Spirit. By Jack Cain. Rhinebeck, NY: Epigraph Books, 2024.
Jack Cain’s A Magician’s Memoir: The Pull of Spirit is a remarkable Bildungsroman. On a par with early Castaneda books, the account takes us on an epic tour of sacred sites around the world and places us in conversation with ancient sages, saints, and resident spirits, each stop enriching our sense of a hero’s mission. Drama, restlessness, passion drive the inquiry, finally to come to a (temporary) halt with Confucius, in whose literary presence ‘Connections begin to form./Voices of the ancients murmur in the dark.’ [102] Then we see that Cain is seeking, not that insight that would all at once transmute mundane reality, but the reassurance that everyday life is already enlightening.
This is an intense delving into nature, not with the dulled apparatus of a scientist, but seeking materialization of a purposive wisdom. When he stands outdoors at the onset, a blue light indicates ‘A sacred function is being fulfilled.’ [8] An autumn flower near Rumi’s tomb reminds him of the ‘inner sun’ within his chest. [38] Climbing La Malinche, a long-time wish, he is met at the peak with an embrace of its guardian. [59] Through a sequence of evanescent perceptions, Cain is able to come to an appreciation of who he is and the place allotted him.
The process revolves around a set of unique dialogues. Using an interview format, the author is able to enter into conversations with objects, places, saints and sages, and even the angelic sphere. Each is a pause in the ‘forward’ movement and permits yet undisclosed material to be presented to a heart eager for schooling. It is a motley collection (as various as one of Borges’s) and includes the blue of Chartres’s windows, Ingo Swann (of NASA’s Jupiter probe), the priest of the Temple of Artemis, Leonardo’s ‘Salvator Mundi’, a glass of pulque, and a mirror. In the course of each, one is given indications of an unknown interior space. Each interlocutor, ordinary or spectral, is a doorway to the sacred. An understanding flickers in the seeker’s mind, grows and subsides without bursting into flame.
The route followed is what intrigues a reader. Plots within plots as connections develop into a world of fascination. Cain’s initial bewilderment (‘What is my next step? What is my direction to be?’ [10]) is met with the counsel of the eagle (‘Listen, listen, listen hard and fast’), which serves him well. Early questions hint at the aim of his mission. In his encounter with the stained-glass windows of Chartres Cathedral, he learns that he is to be the conduit of an ‘enlivening vibration’ [16] meant for humanity. Since it demands his total participation, it is overlooked in a distracted, preoccupied state. From Ingo Swann (of the NASA Jupiter probe), Cain is reminded of the ‘pristine naked awareness’ of the Yoga Sutras. From Rumi in Rumi’s hometown, he hears how the force ‘can cleanse and irrigate. But only if you are open and submit to its influence.’ [40] From the Mayan city Uxmal at the Pyramid of the Dwarf, Cain learns the name of what he seeks: ‘Love is a sorcery.’ [45]
Later on, the eagle reappears during a communion while drinking a glass of pulque. To Cain’s apprehension, the spirit confirms that the journey ‘is a death. But it is also a resurrection.’ [65] Of the whole person, mind, body, and feeling. It is from his guardian angel that Cain is called to his specific vocation; ‘Listen to the part that does not speak. And write from that listening.’ [69] That is affirmed when the speech turns prophetic as it does in conversation with Pakal, a great Mayan ruler. The time, we are told, is one of a passing of ages. Cain is again instructed to listen inwardly, to align himself with the source of the listening, and to ‘emanate,’ to transmit the silence in silence. ‘What is to come depends on how you are now in the chaos.’ [74] The pathway is confirmed in conversing with the angel. ‘Don’t try. Don’t push. It needs gentleness.’ [79]
What is left is not a whole vision. These are fragments. They do not fit together while at the same time transmitting to one another along some hidden bond their different points of view. Each gives its testimony and Cain, sorcerer-poet, gains wisdom of the mystery. He asks Gaia whether he should be hopeful. She tells him, ‘Hope, if conscious, is strength. Be conscious. Be strong.’ [97] The reader receives this final message also, with fond gratitude.
David Appelbaum April 24, 2024